The present invention relates to an image-receiving sheet for electrophotography. Further, the present invention relate to an image-receiving sheet suited for use in an electrophotographic device having a fixing belt.
An electrophotographic method is employed for an output device for a copying machine and a personal computer because in this method a dry treatment is employed, and thus the printing speed is high. The electrophotographic method is accomplished by transferring a toner image to an image-receiving sheet, and then passing the sheet through a heated and/or pressed fixing part, such as a fixing roller or a fixing belt, to fix the toner image to the image-receiving sheet. General paper (plain paper and quality paper) is usable as the image-receiving sheet. However, for improving the fineness, glossiness and brightness of the image, using an image-receiving sheet for electrophotography which comprise a toner image-receiving layer containing a thermoplastic resin formed on a support is proposed in J. P. KOKAI Nos. Hei 4-212,168 and 8-211,645.
However, in the electrophotographic image-receiving sheet comprising a toner image-receiving layer containing a thermoplastic resin, the fixing of the toner image onto the toner image-receiving layer is poor. Therefore, the sheet has a problem in that reverse transferring of a toner image onto said fixing part, a so-called offsetting, occurs. Furthermore, if an offset occurs, the sheet has another problem in that a portion of the image is peeled off of the image-receiving layer to be transferred onto the fixing part, thus causing deterioration of the image, and thereby decreasing the gloss. Also, due to poor peeling of the image-receiving sheet from the fixing part, it is possible that the image-receiving sheet will be adhered to the fixing part, and thus cause paper jamming and system damage.
To solve these problems, in J.P. KOKAI No. 4-501925 a method for processing an image comprising a fixing belt type fixing part using a ferro-type web having a specific surface energy has been proposed. Also, in J.P. KOKAI No. 10-230889 an image-receiving sheet having an image-receiving layer with a specific elastic modulus has been proposed.
However, said problems with regard to offset, gloss and peeling are caused by the image-receiving sheet adhering to the fixing belt, or the image-receiving sheet adhering the toner image. These problems are inevitable even if the properties of the fixing belt and the image-receiving sheet themselves are specifically determined. Therefore, it is necessary to determine a desirable range regarding the relationships of properties between an image-receiving sheet and a toner image, as well as an image-receiving sheet and a fixing part.